


i know how bitterly it always ends

by toflowerknights



Category: The 100
Genre: M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:11:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2513954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toflowerknights/pseuds/toflowerknights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You'd think there'd be signs. Things that made them wonder how they didn't see it before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i know how bitterly it always ends

**Author's Note:**

> i'm no medical pro, please don't hang me

You'd think there'd be signs. Things that made them wonder how they didn't see it before. But to Finn it simply didn't click that there was something wrong, until there was nothing left to do. Or so he'd thought. Now, when he thought back on it, he knew better.

It creeped up on them. So slow they didn't even notice it was there at first. Bellamy was squinting more than he used to, face turned into a permanent frown as he tried to look straight ahead without his vision getting blurry. He got tired for no reason, and barely played with their dog anymore. He had more headaches than usual. Headaches that went on for days without interruption, but whenever Finn suggested that he might go see a doctor Bellamy waved him off.

"They'll just say it's a normal headache and that you worried for nothing," he smiled with a grimace and kissed Finn quickly on the forehead. "I'm gonna go lie down for a bit. Make dinner together later?"

Finn nodded with and smiled when Bellamy disappeared with Maxwell right behind him, ready to cosy up next to his favourite person in the world. He went back to work, typing a 3000 word review by 8 am the following day. Time flew by and Finn was surprised to see that it was after midnight when he finished. Bellamy hadn't woken up, hadn't started dinner and even worse Finn hadn't noticed that anything was off.

Finn walked quietly into the bedroom and saw Maxwell's eyes stare back at him next to a sleeping Bellamy. His breaths came in short pants and it was something unsettling about it that made Finn push Maxwell off the bed and crawl down next to him. Bellamy stirred slightly and smiled sleepily at Finn.

"Hey," he mumbled and curled up to his side.

"Hi," Finn replied. "You fell asleep."

"I did?" Bellamy seemed surprised, mixed in with sleepy cuteness and Finn nodded with a smile. He watched Bellamy settle deeper into the bed, took in his red rimmed eyes and frowned slightly.

"Hey, do you think you might be allergic to Maxwell?" Finn whispered. Bellamy's eyes flew up.

"I'm not getting rid of Max, so no, I'm not allergic," he snapped, without any bite in it. "Don't worry, baby," he continued with his voice directed to the floor. "I'll never let you go."

Finn smiled into his pillow and reached out to pull Bellamy close. "Just... please check it out?" he asked quietly. "For me?" Bellamy hummed and kissed him slowly on the lips.

"For you," he promised.

-

Finn woke up to Bellamy vomiting in the bathroom five days in a row.

-

One day when Finn came home Bellamy was sitting on the couch staring of into nothing while Maxwell tried to get his attention. It seemed like Bellamy didn't even notice that the dog was there. Finn took a few steps into the living room and placed his jacket and bag on a chair by the dining table.

"Everything okay?" Finn asked carefully and Bellamy's eyes snapped up to him.

There was something so off about Bellamy that worried Finn more than any of the fights they had ever had. He had deep circles around his eyes and he was subconsciously twisting the ring on his finger, something he only did when he was about to say something incredibly important.

"I..." he began and cleared his throat slightly. "I went to the doctors, as you said." He licked his lips once, twice and looked helplessly at Finn.

"So?" Finn said, "What did they say?" He wanted to say something to lighten the mood, but the words were stuck in his throat and he just wanted Bellamy to get it over with. To tell him what was wrong.

"It turns out the headaches... the headaches weren't nothing." Bellamy pressed his lips together and turned his head away from Finn. He mumbled something, almost to quiet to hear, but to Finn it was like a gun firing right in front of him. Brain tumor. The size of a fucking fist. Too late. Too fucking late.

Bellamy kept talking to him after that, but Finn didn't hear a word. He was sure that some of it was important information, but there was just no way Finn could take in anything other than the fact that Bellamy was dying.

"Are you okay?"

Finn came back to reality. Bellamy was looking at him worriedly and Finn blinked twice. "Am I... am _I_ okay?" he asked and Bellamy nodded subtly.

And that was all it took for Finn to start crying.

-

The worst part was telling the others. The words were barely out of Bellamy's mouth before Octavia had burst into tears. She clung to Bellamy, who hugged her back just as tightly and the others could only stand and watch helplessly. Both Monty and Jasper was crying and Clarke's eyes were blank as she dug her nails into her palms to keep up her strong facade. Raven was a stone wall, not letting anything show, but Finn knew her heart was breaking.

"How did this happen?" Octavia sobbed and Finn couldn't help but ask the same thing. Bellamy pressed her closer and whispered comforting words in her ear, never letting her see how terrified he really was.

-

"Do you still wanna stay with me?" Bellamy asked one day and Finn dropped the mug he was holding.

Bellamy flinched at the loud noise and wrapped his robe tighter around him for protection.

"What?" Finn repeated dumbly.

Bellamy pressed his lips together. "You heard me," he said clearly. "I'm just saying... you don't have to stay, you know. If you think that would be-"

"Bellamy, shut the fuck up," Finn interrupted roughly and stepped around the broken shards to press Bellamy up against the counter. He grasped Bellamy's face between his hands and tilted it up to face his own. "Now, listen very carefully. I am not leaving." He nodded to drive his point forward. "I am not leaving you, ever. And you piss me off so fucking much by thinking that I would let you go through this alone. Got it?"

Bellamy nodded, and bit his quivering lip. "Thank you," he whispered and Finn choked back a laugh as he leaned forward.

"You're so stupid," he said between kisses. "So fucking stupid. I _love_ you."

-

Their life became another hospital visit after another. There were scans, biopsies and tests with names Finn couldn't even pronounce. Bellamy was often too tired to talk whenever they got back home, so they spent hours curled up on the couch with Maxwell curled up on the floor in front of them. Finn didn't think he had ever seen so many lifetime movies in his life.

Sometimes, when Bellamy had to stay overnight at the hospital, Octavia would join Finn by his side. They would play cards, or some other stupid game, anything to put a smile on Bellamy's face as he laid, pale as a ghost, in the small bed. It worked for the most part.

Finn went online and spent countless hours gathering more information than he would ever need, most of it that he didn't even understand. He tried to sort through it all and decide what would be useful, rather than seeing all the bad things people were saying. How it was too late to do anything. That all he could do was wait. His research pile grew bigger every day and his work got more and more pissed at him because he wasn't giving them anything to print. Finn didn't care. He would do whatever it took. There had to be something out there that would give them an inch of hope. Surgery, herbal tea, a fucking wizard.

Bellamy found him hunched over his computer once in the middle of the night, and he walked up to the desk and leaned against it. "You've got to stop doing this," he said quietly. "I can't keep watching you torture yourself."

"I'm not," Finn said, but didn't take his eyes off the screen. "I'm trying to do something, anything, to help. There has to be something."

Bellamy sighed. That fucking sigh he always did whenever Finn was being stupid or unreasonable. He reached out his hand, and Finn did not notice the bony, pale wrist sticking out from the robe, he didn't, to gently grasp Finn's hand. "Finn," he said slowly. "I'm dying."

Finn made a choked sound in the back of his throat and shook his head. "I'm dying," Bellamy repeated and Finn pushed Bellamy's hand away.

"Stop saying that," Finn bit out. "You don't know that."

"I do," Bellamy said calmly, and a rage filled Finn to the bones.

"How can you be so calm about this?" he asked angrily and got up from his chair. "I'm trying to help you and you've just given up. I'm trying..." His voice broke and suddenly Finn felt so ashamed. He turned around and tried to compose himself, but within seconds Bellamy was in front of him, wrapping his frail arms around him.

"It's okay," he whispered against Finn's hair and Finn grasped the fabric of Bellamy's robe, clung to it like a lifeline and whenever Bellamy tried to back away Finn was there to press him closer.

"It's not," Finn sobbed. "It's so unfair."

"It doesn't matter. I get weeks, maybe months to tell you every day how much I love you. I forgot that sometimes. To just tell you that I love you. I get to make that right."

"I don't want you to make it right," Finn protested loudly. "I want you to fight with me. To tell me when I'm being an idiot and when I make you want to punch the wall. I want you to  _fight_ , Bellamy. Please."

This time when Bellamy took a step back Finn let him. He let his hands stay on Bellamy's waist thought, not wanting him to be too far away. Bellamy's eyes were blank and Finn felt a hand wrap itself around his heart when he saw the etched out body, the lack of hair on Bellamy's head, covered up with a beanie and the hollow, sunken in face. Bellamy took one of Finn's hands in his and gave it a small, gentle kiss.

"I'm too tired to fight," Bellamy whispered.

-

A week later Bellamy collapsed and was permanently put in the hospital. Their life was now a room wide enough to fit a bed and two chairs. Bellamy was sleeping most of the time and Finn found himself listening to the beeps of the machines keeping his husband alive. He watched Bellamy's heart rate, felt his own speed up when Bellamy's slowed down.

The only time Finn left the tiny room was to get something to eat or to shower. The nurses had pretty quickly caught on the Finn would be a permanent fixture in the hospital and had allowed a second bed to be rolled in. It was shuffled away in the corner and used very rarely. Whenever Finn could get away with it he would crawl up into the tiny bed and rest his head against Bellamy's chest to ensure that it wasn't giving out any time soon. In those moments they seemed almost normal.

-

A hand on his shoulder made Finn startle awake, and when he looked up Octavia was giving him a pinched smile. "How is he?" she whispered and sat down in the vacant chair. Finn thought she looked tired, which meant that he probably looked horrible.

Finn shrugged. "They did some tests on him earlier," he said and rubbed his eyes, "Wore him out."

Octavia nodded and shrugged out of her coat. "Anyone else coming by today?" she asked and Finn shook his head. Usually the room was filled with people visiting Bellamy, but the last couple of days it had been quiet.

"I told them no," he admitted. "He's... too tired. More people would just make it worse. But Raven's coming by tomorrow."

They sat in silence and watched Bellamy's chest rise and fall, talking when they felt like it. Bellamy woke up a while later and smiled tiredly when he saw Octavia sitting next to him. Finn went out to buy something to eat in the cafeteria and when he got back both of them were laughing out loud. Bellamy's eyes were shining when he looked at Finn and felt like time was going too fast.

-

Finn woke up. Slowly. He had been dreaming about the first date he and Bellamy had been on, and was reluctant to wake up completely. They had gone to dinner at some crappy diner which was the only thing they could afford, followed by a action movie about a guy who saves the girl and gets the world or something. They had snuck into a bar and Bellamy had pushed him up against the wall, and between giggles and kisses Bellamy had told him that this would be amazing. No, forever. This would be forever. Finn never corrected him, just knew that he had been right. He never disagreed. And that's when he noticed it.

It was too quiet.

No sound could be heard. Finn closed his eyes and thought, it's not like in the movies. There's no rush of nurses running in, there's no beeping noises telling you there's something going horribly wrong. It's just silent. No one prepares you for this.

He bites his lip, tries not to notice how cold the body under him is. He wonders how long ago Bellamy stopped breathing and he wondered how he didn't notice. For weeks Finn had been wired to wake up whenever Bellamy as much as coughed. How the fuck could he miss his heart not beating? It just didn't make sense. It just... didn't make sense.

With a heavy heart Finn pushed himself up in a sitting position, then immediately wished he hadn't. Bellamy was laying in front of him, lips pale blue and slightly parted. His eyes were closed and the beanie he always wore was slightly askew.

And he wasn't breathing.

Finn blinked and when he opened his eyes everything was blurry. A loud, broken noise was echoing off the walls and after a moment Finn realised he was crying. 

-

He opened the door to an empty house and startled when he heard barking. Maxwell came running out, tail wagging, and looked expectantly at the door. Finn felt a lump form in his throat when he realised he was waiting for Bellamy.

"He's not coming," he said thickly and let out a pained noise when Maxwell tilted his head questioningly to the side. "Max, he's not coming home anymore, okay? He's dead. He's dead and he's not coming back, so just go away." Max stayed put and gave out a low whine. Finn couldn't take it. His body was wrecked with grief and everything around him reminded him of the fact that Bellamy wasn't coming back.

Finn leaned back against the door and soundlessly slid down to the floor. He hid his face against his knees and drew breath after shuddering breath. A wet muzzle touched his cheek and a moment later he had a lap full of dog. Finn sobbed quietly and buried himself in the tick fur. Maxwell didn't move but gave out small whines every now and then.

When Finn had composed himself enough to get off the floor he slowly walked through the house, Maxwell not far behind. He laid down on the couch and coughed slightly when Maxwell jumped up on him and laid down next to him. His fingers fumbled with Bellamy's ring he had put on a chain around his neck, and within moments he was asleep. His dreams were a mess of things that were and things that could have been, and Finn didn't know what hurt more.

-

In the morning nothing had changed.


End file.
